


“…sometimes I breathe them, and sometimes they choke me.”

by LittleObsessions



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: AU, Adultery, Angst, Dark, Endgame never happened, F/M, Introspection, They're still in the DQ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 18:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10195862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleObsessions/pseuds/LittleObsessions
Summary: "I have principles..."An AU, where things are nice and dark. Just how I like them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MiaCooper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCooper/gifts).



> Thanks:Thank you, thank you to Mia Cooper - my fandom BFF and encourager of all things deranged. I borrowed this idea from her, so it's only right she is properly acknowledged in gift form. 
> 
> Disclaimer: These characters don’t belong to me, and nor does any reference or allusion to plots or idea that are  
> recognisably Paramount’s or CBS’. I make no gain – monetary or otherwise - from writing these stories.
> 
> Author's note: This may not be to everyone's taste, but I nonetheless hope it is enjoyed by some.

 

* * *

I have principles, I tell myself, as your hand closes around mine and your wedding ring – a yellow, faded gold – glints indignantly in the low light.

I turn my face away.

And your mouth tracks mine to push against my lips.

I have principles. I’m known for them, and I have upheld them for so long that I’m not sure they’re even there anymore. They’re fragments now, a crumbling wall – failing me at my battle – which I cling to. They are thin, like air, and sometimes I breathe them, and sometimes they choke me.

I open my mouth to you, and the noise I make comes as a surprise. It’s a sigh of inevitability, of acceptance.

I want it to be a protest, or a denial. It isn’t.

I used to have principles, but now, when I’m under your hands, they feel fragile and distant. They feel as if they’re binding me to someone I used to be.

I’m not her anymore. I’m not the woman who stranded us here, and who thought it was right.

I thought it was right to bring the tertiary adjunct of unimatrix one aboard. You told me differently.

Maybe you knew. You knew the inevitability, and you knew she’d be the last fracture.

Your fingers – I concentrate on your right hand because I can’t bear your left – gently tug at the seal on my jacket, and push it from my shoulders. I shrug it off, hyper aware of the noise of it falling to the floor.

Your wife is just next door. And I know what can be heard through these bulkheads. I’ve been her. I’ve heard it.

Only at first. It’s silent now. The sides have swapped.

I used to have principles.

I used to think I’d never give into this. But I have, and you have. Time and again.

Each time I think I’ve formed the courage to ask you to take the ring off, or even to refuse, or to stall your fingers as they strip me and I let them, but I can’t. The words don’t come.

I’ve lost the language of morality. With everything I’ve lost, I never thought that would be the thing I’d most grieve.

You remind me of Justin, you made me forget about Mark. When I was with them, I thought I had principles. I was going to be a wife, I was going to be a mother. I was going to abandon the stars and their mysteries one day, and settle behind a desk, and raise children, and be content.

It says so much more about me that here, hidden and covert, is my contentment. As the woman you used to love, and now you fuck. You might still love me.

Here is my contentment. I used to have principles.

Sometimes I think you love me. And I let myself believe it.

You even tell me it, pressed between slick skin and whiskey.

I don’t have the courage to say it back.

You tell me you’ll leave her, but I shake my head. I tell you I have principles.

And your eyes darken, and you say nothing.

On the Bridge, we work side by side, hands never touching. I’d hate the crew to know, and our fingers never touch.

Nothing really touches, across this chasm we’ve quarried, founded, chipped away at over the years. Just our bodies.

I used to think I’d keep my Ready Room for business only. I had principles. But when I’m aching to feel you – to feel – I call you in there, and let you strip me, and set me on my desk and whisper those words you’re supposed to say to your wife into my skin.

I love your wife, you know. I love her.

But it doesn’t mean I don’t hate her too.

It doesn’t mean I don’t envy her.

My principles don’t stretch that far. They’re frigid, like ice. There’s no give. I only have principles when they don’t deny me what I want.

What I need.

I need you, and so I sacrifice everything else.

I sacrifice myself, at an altar of the type of woman I used to judge. The woman I swore I’d never become.

I had principles, when I turned you away on New Earth. I thought I was bigger than desire, and better than the love I bore you. I thought I was better than what we could have made.

Mark was a flimsy excuse, transparent when held up to the weakest light, bolstering principles which failed me. I used to watch you sleep – envious of your peace.

I still do. You fall asleep beside me, and I can’t join you. You sleep like an innocent, and it makes me angry. It incenses me. And I say nothing. I want you to suffer like I do, I want you to despise what we’ve become. But you can’t.

Because after all the years of my parameters, _my_ principles, you finally have what _you_ wanted.

Except, I tell myself as your mouth trails a line of hot, familiar kisses over my ribs,  you don’t have the woman you met ten years ago.

She’s gone. She’s fled my skin, leaving this woman I birthed, raised, created.

A woman you think still has principles.

She’s nothing, you tell yourself, if she’s not principled.

When did you start lying to yourself?

“What do you need?”

You ask me, every time.

I don’t have an answer. I’ve stopped wanting anything. I don’t even want home any more. Home is here, now, because this is where I was born. The Delta Quadrant. Devoran Space. Fairhaven. Quarra. And it’s also where I buried everything I’ve lost.

I want to ask questions of you. I want to ask you if your young, pretty, whole, wife knows. I want to ask you if you care about her.

You do care, I know, but just not enough.

I used to think you had principles but, as you slide into me, and tell me you love me, I often realise you don’t.

You used to.

I think I spent so long watching the degradation of mine, that I missed the departure of yours. I often wonder if you married her to hurt me.

I’ve never asked. My principles, my pride, will not allow me to.

My understanding too. I couldn’t bear the answer. I couldn’t bear to know you chose me, by not choosing.

You left me to it, you married her, because you thought my principles prevented me.

You see, I want to tell you, it was my fear. But the words won’t come. They don’t. I’m too afraid to say them. So I try to show you.

I feel woefully inadequate.

So we lie on my bed, silent, and your wife is on the other side. Silent. 

I know I should feel guilt, I know I should feel shame.

But then I remind myself. I used to have principles.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Stars are a Graveyard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10228079) by [carlynroth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carlynroth/pseuds/carlynroth)
  * [What Kind of Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11308653) by [MiaCooper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCooper/pseuds/MiaCooper)




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